


silhouettes

by bad blood (eroticcodependence)



Category: Death Note
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 05:46:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5405267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eroticcodependence/pseuds/bad%20blood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mello appears exactly thirteen months after Light Yagami is declared dead on arrival.</p><p>canon compliant: post series, pre oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	silhouettes

**Author's Note:**

> i think i've been sitting on this fic for a solid few months, adding things, deleting things, generally messing around with it. in other words, it's about time i released it into the wild.
> 
> be free, tiny fic.

_it's hard letting go_  
_i'm finally at peace but it feels wrong_

_-_

_you are folded on the bed  
__where i rest my head._  
_there's nothing i can see,_  
_darkness becomes me._

\- [silhouettes, of monsters and men](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BBksAK0f0g)

* * *

 

 

Mello appears exactly thirteen months after Light Yagami is declared dead on arrival.  
  
Near's immediate reaction is to build walls between himself and his apparent psychosis. Stacking the cards higher, surrounding himself, he ignores Halle's offended looks and Roger's unsettled ones. Rester and Gevanni seem unsurprised.  
  
It doesn't matter if it isn't healthy if it works, Near rationalizes. Mello stares.  
  
-  
  
The towers begin to fall one week later. It's not unlike the way they used to, back home, except Mello isn't small and lithe and electric anymore, and it is boots rather than bare feet which fold and bend the cards underfoot. That said, Mello looks incredibly alive for someone who has been dead for a year.  
  
Near stares at the collapsed structures. Fear sits with him, an old friend.  
  
-  
  
"Talk to me." Mello is behind him, turning the chocolate bar that had been on the desk over in his hands, the one that Near hasn't touched since Mello placed his hands on it. "Say something."  
  
Near refuses to speak to his delusions. It will give them power. That said, he hasn't put much heart into willing Mello away, either.  
  
A part of him wants to scream at the security camera: _can't you see him, he's here and he's talking to me and I don't know what to do._  But he doesn't. He places another matchstick onto a steadily growing metropolis, and runs his thumb over the two puppets on his other hand.  
  
Mello sighs.  
  
-  
  
Mello has been around now for three weeks. Sometimes Near will wake up and he will be staring out the window, or sprawled on the floor, searching the ceiling. He will shadow Near constantly until Near passes out again in exhaustion later. Sometimes he won't appear for days. He rarely speaks, and when he does he is telling Near to talk to him or making snide, irrelevant comments. Near ignores both.  
  
They can't go on like that forever though, and eventually, something has to give.  
  
-  
  
Near makes sure he's totally alone before he stands, set on his decision and the timing of it. Roger will be asleep by now, and he has turned the cameras off for a system update. The agents are currently staying with family, waiting to be called upon for a new case. The opportunity is too much to ignore, and a month is as long as Near believes both his patience and sanity- if he hasn't lost that already- can last. Near looks at Mello, really looks at him, for the first time since he reappeared. His eyes are sharp and bright. His hair still looks like it would be soft, could be wound between two of fingers. He looks as much like Mello as he ever has. And yet.  
  
"You are dead."  
  
Near is amazed at how calm his own voice sounds, considering that he's anything but beneath the surface.  
  
Mello's face twists in dissatisfaction and Near can almost believe that he is real, that there is blood pumping beneath faded skin, that he would be warm. The constant goosebumps that Near feels now contradict that theory.  
  
"I spend a year trying to figure out how to stand here and that's the best you can come up with?"  
  
Near shrugs. He has been feeling rather inadequate lately.  
  
-  
  
Mello is adamant that yes, he is dead, but he is not gone. He's clinging to the edge of the veil, a spirit with no body to occupy. It sounds incredibly unlikely. Near is more ready to believe he has begun hallucinating.  
  
"If you don't believe me," Mello states, crouching on the other side of a playing card battlement, which has now been built high enough to obscure Mello's not-actually-there stomach. His hand reaches out, the crucifix on his wrist dancing against the artificial light. "Then touch me."  
  
Near doesn't care in that moment that he is going to reach out and grasp thin air. He doesn't care that Rester is tapping away on a keyboard about five feet away, and that he could turn around at any moment to see Near interacting with his breakdown. So he carefully raises his hand, fingers stretched out to touch Mello's palm.  
  
For a moment, there is contact, sharp and clear like touching a hot stove. Just a moment. Then his hand slips through Mello's like it is made of nothing, because it is made of nothing, but it wasn't for long enough.  
  
Near's hands are shaking too much to continue with the cards after that.  
  
-  
  
"It's hard to do." Mello explains, reclining lazily on the desk in Near's bedroom. As if he's not dead. As if it's the sort of thing that becomes someone who isn't really there. "Touching objects is fine. People are difficult. I've tried tapping Halle's shoulder, but my hand just slips through her. And you're the only one I can figure out appearing in front of. Annoying, right?"  
  
Near frowns. "Why?"  
  
"I imagine you're the only one who wants to see me."  
  
"I don't want to see you."  
  
"Charming. Alright then." He sounds like he's a little pissed off about that, but missing the energy to actually get angry. Again, they misunderstand each other. Perhaps Near should try a little harder. "Maybe you're the only one who hasn't let me go. Or some sentimental bullshit like that. Just a theory." Mello's voice is sharp.  
  
Near stays silent. He doesn't like to admit that he can't accept Mello's death, because he should have moved on from it a long time ago. But he is trying to be L, and Mello is the missing piece of that identity. Not even a piece. He's a whole half of it.  
  
He stares at the puppets. He's been doing that a lot lately.  
  
-  
  
If Near can believe Mello when he says Shinigami exist and that the rules in a notebook of death are fake, he reasons that he should be able to believe Mello when he says that spirits are real, too, and that he is one.  
  
Mello also told him he would be waiting for him, however. Maybe his trust is severed.  
  
_Or_ , he asks himself, watching Mello poke at Near's dice tower like it's a game of Jenga, _maybe I've only just reached him_.  
  
-  
  
"I miss chocolate." Mello is sitting cross legged on the floor, leaning against the wall. Near is trying to sleep for the first time in three days, at Halle's insistence. He hasn't been successful so far. Mello's constant commentary isn't helping. "Well, fuck. That's a stupid thing to say when I miss being alive in general, but y'know."  
  
"I miss you being alive in general, too." Near whispers into the pillow, because he's too tired for this conversation and he's stopped caring about holding his tongue. "You're even more difficult like this."  
  
Mello shouldn't have been able to hear that, but he does, and silence stretches between them for a long moment.  
  
"Why do you have to go and say shit like that?"  
  
Near doesn't reply.  
  
-  
  
It get easier. Or maybe it doesn't, and Near is just getting used to seeing Mello. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is debatable. As he considers it, Mello interrupts.  
  
"I'm not something to be solved." His stare is focused, tense. "I just am. Stop treating me like a puzzle and start treating me like a human being."  
  
"You're not human anymore."  
  
"I was."  
  
Silence. Like a thick blanket pooling at their feet, or an ocean, which they've been throwing things into ever since they met. None of which has resulted in a bridge. Nothing of consequence. Mello has thrown in his rage, Near has thrown in empty gestures: puppets, photos, very few words.  
  
"This doesn't have to be a problem. It could be a solution. Have a little faith, Near."  
  
More silence. The ocean is as vast as it has always been.  
  
-  
  
Near is only frustrated with Mello's answer, and stays that way for days, because faith had always been on Mello's half of the whole. Also, how is this not a problem? He feels something not unlike his stomach twisting itself into knots, and he clenches his fist a lot. The air is now much more thin.

"Mello," he says, one night when the ghost of his former rival has perched himself on the end of his bed. "This is a problem because I believe I loved you, and you being here doesn't make not loving you any easier."  
  
The pressure lessens on Near's insides now that the truth is not filling him up, but he now runs the risk of being empty, and he imagines that is much worse.  
  
Mello laughs slightly, bitterly. "Why'd you have to wait until I was dead until you'd say that?"  
  
"What would it have changed?"  
  
"Everything. Nothing. I suppose it doesn't really matter now."  
  
No, it doesn't. Maybe it would have, maybe under different circumstances Mello would have hit him for it, maybe he would have kissed him. Near's skin prickles at the thought. Near has never kissed anyone before. He wonders if Mello would be gentle, if it would be the only thing about him not fueled by something fierce and raw, or whether he'd bite and growl and take, take, take what he wants.  
  
Still, like Mello said. It doesn't matter.  
  
-  
  
Mello begins to appear less. Maybe he was only able to in order to coax the truth out of Near, to take care of that unfinished, unspoken business between them. There is more peace now, even if it is not full, and Near feels slightly more capable.  
  
Near's bedroom is the only place Mello will be now, and their conversations are short. They play a game of swapping secrets. Near learns a lot about Mello, and the more he learns, the more he regrets. He wonders how much time was wasted because Near played games.  
  
Neither of them know where Mello will end up. Near can only hope that it's somewhere better than this.  
  
-  
  
Like all games, it must come to and end. The end in question arrives on a cold Sunday evening. Mello is almost translucent at this point, and they both know he is about to slip away completely, his appearances rare and precious.  
  
"So," Mello begins. "Maybe I loved you too. I don't know. You were the center of my whole damn world, so it was hard not to at least feel something. But L came first."  
  
Near nods. "I know."  
  
"In another life, maybe."  
  
"I'll meet you there."  
  
Mello laughs lightly. He sounds free, his longing for life eased into acceptance of his death. Near has ached in the most gentle way while watching the transition. "I didn't lie. It's a different destination, but I'm still waiting for you."

There hadn't been time to mourn Mello in the climax of the Kira case, but tonight finally feels like he has space to breath. Space to let go. Space to say "Goodbye, Mello."  
  
And, as easily as those words slips from his lips,  
  
Mello is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> find me here: wxmmyshouse.tumblr.com


End file.
